Defense Department to provide support to India for Covid response
The Defense Department will provide support to India for its Covid response, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Sunday.
“I have directed the Department to use every resource at our disposal, within our authority, to support U.S. interagency efforts to rapidly provide India’s frontline healthcare workers with the materials they need. We are currently assessing the equipment we can both procure and draw from our own inventory in the coming days and weeks,” Austin said in a statement.
The statement follows the news that the Biden administration will deploy additional supplies and support to India as the country deals with a spike in coronavirus cases.
Austin also announced that in the next few days, the department will provide transportation and logistics assistance to deliver needed supplies to India, including oxygen-related equipment, rapid testing kits and personal protective equipment.
“We will continue to work closely with other U.S. agencies and Departments, as well as with industry, to support our Indian partners in their effort to combat this outbreak,” Austin said.
India on Sunday reported 349,691 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total to more than 16.9 million cases in the country, according to a CNN tally of figures from the Indian Ministry of Health.
India also reported on Sunday the country’s highest daily record for deaths for the ninth consecutive day, adding 2,767 deaths in the past 24 hours. In the past three days, the country, with a 1.3 billion-strong population, has added over a million cases.
Sunday’s tally represents the highest number of cases recorded in a single day anywhere in the world, according to a CNN tally of figures from John Hopkins University. It is the fourth day running that India has broken the record.
